The Last Will and Testament of Marinette Dupain-Cheng
by foggraven
Summary: You don't write a will when you're fifteen years old. When you're Marinette you don't have much in the way of material possessions to bequeath to anyone anyway.


**An: Inspired by** **SoulJelly's 'Testament'** **over on Ao3**

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You don't write a will when you're fifteen years old.

When you're Marinette you don't have much in the way of material possessions to bequeath to anyone anyway. She's always been content with relatively few possessions.

Most of what she does have is in the way of homely comforts, her favourite pillow, her clothes, a favoured toy from when she was a child; not the sort of things you leave to anyone.

She supposes she does have the money from Jagged Stone's album cover, but she has little of non-sentimental value.

The few things of importance she does possess she carries with her. The Miraculous never leaves her person. And in this digital age her phone –constantly connected to half a dozen news sights and alert services, Ladybug must have eyes and ears everywhere after all, might as well be the same with how often it leaves her side.

It and her computer –the contents of which she's made Alya promise to delete multiple times, along with quietly making any Adrien related materials in her room disappear if anything ever happens are the most expensive things she owns.

There is no grand fortune to be squabbled over, no hereditary titles, or lands to be divvied up, no prestigious fashion line to be left without a head yet.

* * *

She's been thinking a lot lately, about things she never even thought about.

About how much she loves her city, about how much she cherishes Chat's easy friendship, how she secretly enjoys the terrible puns he makes –not that she'd ever tell him.

Memories of halcyon years past run through her as she gazes out into the golden sunset lit city from Notre Dame and the Tower at the end of days spent patrolling.

Marinette isn't sick. She doesn't have an incurable disease, or a degenerative condition. She isn't the recipient of some freak accident or failed surgery that has left her with debilitating complications slowly sapping away at her life.

She doesn't have failing organs, and has never been exposed to toxic radiation.

There is no reactor meltdown, or plague epidemic. There are no faulty genetics, just as there are no self blaming parents who hate themselves for passing them on.

There is no malpractice, no terminal illness, no quirk of fate, and no series of tragic accidents.

* * *

Sometimes it's little, inconsequential things that make you think, innocuous bits of words and sound spoken by people. The panting exclamations of "I'm dying" spoken by running mates after a day spent racing atop rooftops with the local parkour gang she's taken up with after embracing her cities' historic rebel sport.

"I'm dying." Those two innocuous little words are what really make her think, hammers it in, everything Marinette's always known brought to the fore where she can no longer ignore it.

Dashing across the rooftops won't kill her –not with the deeply ingrained reflexes of Ladybug guiding her steps. Climbing precariously placed drains to delete the incriminating evidence on a classmate's cell phone for what feels like the umpteenth time might not even kill her.

But this...

Papillion, the Miraculous...

Maybe it might not be today, it might not even be a century from now. But someday this thing, this fight against Papillion will be the end of her.

Mathieu recovers his breath; so does Marinette, her heart slowing as her gasps give way to shallow pants.

It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but in the grand scheme of things Marinette is dying.

* * *

You don't write a will when you're fifteen years old.

When you're Marinette you don't have much by way of material possessions to bequeath to anyone anyway.

What there is though is silent letters, written in Marinette's scrawling handwriting which she'd spent years trying to perfect, but ultimately failing, settling for distinct and legible rather than refined and elegant.

She stacks them up neatly into little piles and seals them with red wax stamped with her signature, the one she stitched into her clothes and had spent months designing, intended to one day be recognized across the world.

The one for her partner she presses with a facsimile of Chat's ring –she'd bought a cheap replica meant for tourists and children and used it to emboss the wax, giggling, unable to help herself.

Always careful with what she puts in to anyone who isn't her partner. She writes to her parents, to her friends, and of course to Chat.

Marinette stays up late that weekend –nothing new of course after years spent working on dresses late into the night, and then later running across the rooftops as Ladybug.

When she's done with her letters she sets aside her fountain pen and sits at her desk gazing out at the evening sky, the lights of Paris winking dimly in the distance.

That night it rains for a week in Paris.

* * *

A week later when Chat accepts the bundle of letters despite his clear reluctance to take them he dutifully commits her instructions to memory.

She makes sure he can repeat them back to her four times before she's satisfied.

There's still work you be done though, and Marinette spends many more sleepless nights compiling everything that has ever made her useful into a stack of papers a half inch thick .

All her thoughts and theories about Papillion, her observations of past Akuma, everything that she can think of that might one day be useful Marinette crams into the pages, scribbling extra notes in the margins as she thinks of them.

This time Chat –a bundle of letters clasped in his hand by his side stares in disbelief when she proffers the stack of paper wordlessly before jumping ahead at his look of bafflement and launching into a longwinded explanation,.

By now Chat's inured to her and weird need to be prepared for everything and he allows Marinette to exhaust herself before gently accepting the pile of stationary she thrusts at him after she finishes babbling.

Ladybug usually prides herself on her 'togetherness' –something Marinette is completely lacking in the rest of her life, she only slept for two hours though the previous night, and today she's frazzled and filled with jittery energy that has her talking over herself and getting sidetracked, and she just _cannot_ get the words out!

Somehow she gets through it though and Chat Noir leaves Notre Dame with a thick stack of notes tucked under one arm while Ladybug winds her way across the city tops with a handful of ornately written letters in simple but expensive envelopes.

Later curled up on her bed Marinette tucks Chat's letters inside a miniature iron chest that she found in a nearby market, before getting up and setting it down on her desk.

Marinette sleeps easier knowing that

That night Marinette sleeps a little easier.

* * *

You don't write a will when you're fifteen years old.

When you're Marinette you leave a pile of messily compiled papers and letters with hastily scrawled notes in the margins instead and hope that it's enough.

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 **An:** **A recent thought: Parkour started in Paris –a pretty common theme in the fandom is both Marinette and Adrien loving the freedom, and the freedom of movement offered by their Miraculous', as well as them getting buffer and a lot more fit as a side effect –Ripped Marinette is definitely a guilty pleasure of mine. So why not out of suit as well?**


End file.
